Please read and help have a discussion

I am currently doing a CACHE Level 3 Early Years Educator diploma course with Stonebridge.
I'm at my last assignment and need your help as I am required to post my findings on an online forum and receive some feedback/have a discussion. Any comments would be really appreciated!

I found that the theoretical perspectives are made by 3 different people. These have there own unique ways and understanding. The 3 perspectives are Schon, Kolb and Gibbs. These all provide structured approaches within the child care industry and help people in the child industry to have a better understanding although there is pros and cons to all these theory’s. By applying these theory’s it will give the practitioner or any child care worker the ability to better their understanding of others and the way they work and to also help them make better decisions. It gives you the strengths to continuously ask yourself questions about your practice and evaluate your decisions and create plans for future.

Schons theory is introduced by a man names Donald schon he introduced the idea of ‘the reflective practice’ this was introduced in the 1980’s. He focuses on two types of reflection
1- Reflection in action: this is something that occurs during an activity, it’s about thinking on your feet and making adjustments as you follow though and proceed an activity or daily activity.
2- reflection on action: this is something that occurs after a event. This is about how you review a situation or activity when it happened and considering what when well and what went not so well, and planning improvements for next time. Both these types of reflection are important and will give a better experience to child care providers.

Kolb’s experimental learning.
This is a theory that was developed by a man named David Kolb. He emphasises how you can learn through experiences and have provided 4 different stages:
Stage 1: concrete experience-in the first stage. this is when an activity is engaged in or experience. participating in training or work. an experience that serves as a basis for observation. Encountering new experiences that create a learning opportunity.
Stage 2: reflective observation: in the second stage. reviewing and reflecting on the experience. discussing experiences with other colleagues. You can reflect on the experience before you make judgement, then review the situation and find a meaning behind the experiment.
Stage 3: abstracting conceptualisation: the third stage. drawing conclusions and learning from the experiences-drawing connections between theory and practice. Developing theory’s to explain experiences.
Stage 4: Active experimentation: the fourth stage. applying what you’ve learnt to new situations-implementing changes based on lessons learnt. Apply what you learned in the experience, and help improve understanding and competence.

Gibbs reflective cycle
This theory was developed by a man names Graham Gibbs. This includes six different steps:
1. Description: What happened during the experience?
2. Feeling: what were your thoughts and feelings?
3. Evaluation: what was good and bad about the experience?
4. Analysis: what sense can you make of the situation?
5. Conclusion: what else could you have done?
6. Action plan: if it arose again, what would you do?
These rolls reflection play a big part in the child care industry and gen help massively when trying to improve skills because it helps to identify any strengths and weaknesses and helps find areas to improve on as well as encouraging, evaluated activities and experiences to provide a better decision in future planning. It also helps to empathise and understand this is down to being able To foster a deeper understanding of others experiences by taking into consideration other’s perspectives and experiences.

Reply 1

Sarah stone

Hello, I am also doing a similar course and have also found the following information on the theories, I do hope this helps although the information you have provided is very detailed and well explained. Thank you for also helping me understand a little more about the theories.

I have been looking at David Kolb's theory about professional development, and his theory is a model of reflection and to practitioners can this can easily help follow order to reflect on their professional development. David Kolb made the experimental learning cycle which is used widely by practitioners for reflecting on their own practice. This also involves a four-stage learning cycle in which the learner should hit all four bases.
These include;
Concrete experience where you immerse yourself in the experience and what you are doing, immersing yourself in the work
Reflective practice which is where you think about what you noticed about the experience, what happened and what did you do?
Abstract conceptualization where you think about what you could change or would change about the experience, how would you improve this?
Active experimentation where you try out the new ideas to develop your practice and further develop The idea of his cycle is that you keep going around, constantly reflecting on your work and improving your professional development from immersing yourself in your work, reflecting on this yourself and thinking about how it went overall, thinking about how you could improve this and how you could make your practice better and then finally carrying this out in your practice. This way you are constantly improving your practice and work skills/knowledge to be the best you can and provide the best care to the children.
I feel it is an important practice to maintain in the working childcare environment and I feel it can have many benefits when worked with correctly.
Sarah

Reply 2

Shelby Price

Thank you for your following reply I do also feel like David kolb’s theory has a huge but also very good impact on the child care profession and feel we do really benefit from these theory’s as They are also are a general day to day practice that we may sometimes not realise we do.
Thank you for you help and support,
Shelby